QR Codes for Marketing and Communication in Student Council

One powerful marketing concept is to tap into human curiosity. For example, the QR code with text “Check it Out!” captures the attention of students in the hallways. Assuming you’re in a school that allows cell phones in hallways, a students whips out their phone and scans the QR code. It tells them about an upcoming dance. But, here’s the difference - now that information is in their phone!

You can create your own QR code that contains text at a site like http://qrcode.kaywa.com and you can include up to 256 characters of text. Since most phones can scan QR codes and most students always have their phones, using QR codes is a quick and efficient way to transfer information about events and have that information retained in the phone.

QR codes can also store URLs so that when students scan them, their phone takes them to that website. But, you can go a step further. Using Google’s URL shortener ( http://goo.gl/ ) you can not only turn long URLs into short, easy to share URLs but also generate a QR code for that short URL. There’s another aspect to using this tool that is potentially useful: statistics. When you create short URLs and QR codes in Google while logged in to your Google account, there are statistics maintained for you on how many people visit the linked website. You can monitor traffic to your website and make decisions about which resources are most useful.

To create QR codes using Google, follow these directions:

1. Login to your Google account (if you want to track visitors to you website)
2. Go to http://goo.gl/ and enter the URL for the website and click “shorten”
3. Copy the shorten URL (it will look something like this: http://goo.gl/QPtho )
4. Past that shorten URL into a new browser window and add .qr to the end (http://goo.gl/QPtho.qr )
5. Load that page and the QR code is an image that you can save or copy-paste

Now, whenever you’re logged in to your Google account and you visit http://goo.gl/ you’ll see a list of any URLs that you have shortened. Click on “details” for any of the links to see the statistics for the number of people who have followed your shortened link. Statics are recorded whether visitors clicked on the shortened link from a webpage, tweet, or Facebook or if they followed the link using the QR code.

Oppose PA House Bill 855

Franklin Roosevelt said, "We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future." This captures so much of what we hope to do as teachers and yet simultaneously absolved us of venturing into matters beyond the classroom. The great lesson of history is that groups endure the most severe injustices when good people fail to rise up or speak out.

PA House Bill 855 is not directly about reducing deficit/debt. This is about power. About taking power from workers, from the people, and placing it even more staunchly in the hands of politicians and corporations. This is not an assault on teacher unions - this is an assault on labor, on the workers who built this country, on the middle-class. It is part of a larger effort to reduce the expectations all Americans have for pensions, health care, and security.

Without seniority, a school that is trying to resolve financial issues could furlough one experienced teacher for every two novice teachers and save nearly equally in financial terms. In turn, schools are able to preserve moderate class sizes and programs which reduces resistance from parents. Governors and lawmakers argue that schools need to be able to adopt business-like policies to be more fiscally responsible. If we believe that assertion, then furloughing experienced teachers - regardless of their effectiveness, is the most cost effective solution with minimal impact on other metrics like class size and program availability. Furloughing any teacher is devastating, but without the security of seniority, experienced teachers will be the first to go and with them goes wisdom, influence, and stability.

We cannot guarantee what the future is like for our youth - but if we don't take action, if we don't cry out in protest, we bear the responsibility for the loss of the future that generations before us have fought so hard to build. This is not just about the loss of your job. This is about the extraction of power from the hands of the people and the coalescing of power in the hands of a few.

We can no longer resign ourselves to only preparing our youth for the future; we must also insure that the future is not stolen from our youth.

Please take action against House Bill #855.

Google Voice: A New Approach to the Suggestion Box

Many student councils utilize suggestion boxes to collect feedback and ideas from the student body. The effectiveness of physical suggestion boxes, often located in libraries or other common areas, can vary greatly. One way to potentially increase the amount and timeliness of feedback collected by a “suggestion box” is to replace the physical box with Google Voice.

Google Voice is a powerful tool that blends phone and texting capabilities with voice transcription and message archiving.  Your student council could set up a Google Account and then set up Google Voice that will give your council its own telephone number. You have a lot of choice with this number so that you could potentially create a number that spells out some word or phrase that is easy to market and remember. Once the student body has the number, they can leave suggestions by calling or texting the number. Google Voice will transcribe the phone calls so that you can scan them quickly and keep a text archive along with text messages. You can collect student’s cell phone numbers via Google Voice and even attempt to provide direct responses to their suggestions while maintaining a level of anonymity.

You will want to check with your school’s administration to make sure they are agreeable with the idea of using Google Voice. Also, you will want to make sure that the Google Account that you use to set up Google Voice is a common account for student council rather than someone’s personal Google account.  For more information on Google Voice check out www.google.com/voice. 

Doing Good: Socialbrite.org

December can be a month where we feel more compelled to “do good”. Perhaps it’s residual concerns about Santa’s naughty-or-nice list or more likely it’s a natural extension of the positive feelings that emerge as we take stock of our good fortunes during this holiday season. Whatever motivates us, sometimes simply doing good isn’t so simple.

One web-based resource that is attempting to support our desire to make a difference is Socialbrite.org:

“Socialbrite is a learning hub & sharing community that brings together top experts in social media, causes and online philanthropy. We're here to share insights about tools and best practices that advance the social good. This is an ad-free community learning center.” [ www.socialbrite.org ]

If you use Twitter, follow @socialbrite or check out www.facebook.com/socialbrite in addition to their own website. There’s a wealth of resources and information that channels through Socialbrite, most of which is in support of non-profit organizations’ endeavors to create positive change. Some of the material is also ideal for Student Councils that are interested in increasing their civic engagement and social responsibility. Along the way, students will learn about how technology is changing the landscape of awareness and activism.

Sample of resources available on Socialbrite.org:

12 Steps to Mobilize Your Cause [printable PDF]
http://bit.ly/12steps-flyer

10 Mobile Apps for Social Good [printable PDF]
http://bit.ly/10mobileapps

40 Hashtags for Social Good [printable PDF]
http://bit.ly/40hashtags

9 Web Platforms to Help You Change the World
http://bit.ly/c7utbo

15 Social Tools for Local Impact
http://bit.ly/baiQts

So check out some of the resources listed above and give one or two a spin. If you find something that works particularly well, post a comment.

curiosity-driven science

This talk is just connecting with me right now...

"Brian Cox explains how curiosity-driven science pays for itself, powering innovation and a profound appreciation of our existence."

------------------------ Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994 -------------------------

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

------------------------ Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994 -------------------------

Efficiency Tip - "When is Good"

Need to know the best time for a meeting so you get the highest attendance possible? Then check out “When is Good” at http://whenisgood.net.

Whenisgood.net is a powerful yet simple to use online tool to send out a calendar of dates to your group, have them indicate on a website when is good for them to meet, and then you can quickly analyze the results to pick the best date. There really isn’t a more efficient way to schedule a meeting and maximize attendance. Plus, it’s free!
The best way to get started is to watch the short video on their website http://whenisgood.net/Videos

There are two free ways to use the website. The first is to just simply create an event, color in the days or times that work for you, send out a link via email and copy down a secret code so you can access your event later. People respond, you type in your code and there you are – a visual calendar of “when is good”. The second way is to create an account where you can store multiple events and access them all at one time (rather than needing a separate code for each like the first method). This is the best option if you plan on using the service frequently. The power is in the analysis: click on a respondent’s name to see which days are good just for him or her, click on a day and see the names of the respondents who can make it, or you can simply choose the day with the most respondents.

However you use WhenisGood.net, you’ll be more efficient at scheduling meetings and events.

Art of Choosing - Sheena Lyengar

The concept of choice is a core component of what defines my approach to life. If I have a life motto, it is that life is a series of choices and consequences - that we are in control of our choices alone, nothing else. There have been a number of books (like Blink) that examine our ability to make choices and the subtle factors that influence our decision making. Recently someone reminded me of some psychological research done on how authority can influence, even control, the hardest choices we would have to make.

But something I hadn't thought about much was the idea that sometimes it might be better to have fewer choices or to have things decided for us in order to produce a more harmonious experience. The American view of choice is a culturally entrenched idea that almost defines America itself. In America, we believe that having more choices is better than having fewer choices and that the power to choose should be primarily in the hands of the individual (provided those choices don't impinge on the rights of others to choose).

This TED talk questions some of the assumptions we make about choice and considers some ideas when limited choice or no choice at all, might result in better outcomes.

Sheena Iyengar on the art of choosing | Video on TED.com

Google Apps & Online Voting

Use Google Apps for Education to conduct online voting for school groups and events.

Our school has Google Apps for Education. With that, each student has an email account that they can use along with Google Docs, Calendar, and Sites. Most of this works the same as a regular private Google Account - except for something I came across today.

We want to run elections "online" for Student Council & Class Officer, Homecoming Queen & Prom Court, etc. Google Forms has the potential to make this happen for free, especially the Google Forms within Google Apps for Education.

When you create a form in Google Docs using your Google Apps account, there is an options to require respondents to sign in with their personalize Google Apps account login:


By having each student log in, you can be sure that only HS students are completing the form and that each student only votes one time. And as with regular Google Forms, you can turn forms on and off at specific times, require specific questions to be completed, and view all of the results in a nice spreadsheet.

I haven't used this approach with Google Apps yet (I did with my personal Google Account). Once I get it up and running, I'll share more insight.

baiting the hook

From Dan Meyer's TEDxNY talk:

Indicators that you're teaching problem solving wrong:
1. Lack of initiative
2. Lack of perseverance
3. Lack of retention
4. Aversion to word problems
5. Eagerness for formula

TED talk: http://youtu.be/BlvKWEvKSi8



http://blog.mrmeyer.com/

Failure: The Secret to Success

I know nothing about racing, but this video captures the concept that we seem to be struggling with... failure leads to success when we choose to risk, when we push the limits. The theme of risk and failure applies to systems and to the individual.